In a recent blog post, I cautioned about a particular program and rehab, Narconon, which is actually a front for the church of Scientology, obviously choosing a name that sounds like a 12-step program as a lure. But at least they actually do something (indoctrinate people in their cult).
I’m not the first to post this caution, which is found on a number of addiction oriented sites, but if you are new to looking for help for addictions, your web searches may lead you to something called “Narconon,” which is both a program and now a facility in Florida (land of a thousand rehabs).
It sounds a lot like Nar-Anon, doesn’t it, and also like Narcotics Anonymous. (NA is like AA for drugs; Nar-Anon, with no “c,” is for significant others of drug addicts.) But it’s neither of those.
We continue our interview with SK, a 3L law student in the greater Boston area. Part 1 of the interview can be found here. She graciously agreed to share some of her story with us and to tell us more about Refuge Recovery, a Buddhist path to addiction recovery.
LCL: What is Refuge Recovery and how did you come to be aware of it? How has Refuge Recovery helped you? Do you apply Buddhist principles in all aspects of your life? How have Buddhist principles influenced your life in general, your experience of law school, your future goals as a lawyer?
SK: Refuge Recovery is a Buddhist-based approach to recovery from addiction, founded by a man named Noah Levine*. [*Noah Levine is under investigation for sexual misconduct. Read further at the bottom of this post.] There are meetings all over the U.S. and the world. It’s open to anyone, at any stage of dealing with or recovering from any type of addiction, including alcohol, drugs, food, sex, gambling, codependency, shopping, you name it. I discovered it through a sort of sister-group called Dharma Punx, which is a Buddhist meditation group that also has meetings in Boston. As a nice twist of fate, my sponsor who I met through twelve step is also involved in Refuge Recovery. I spent my first six months of sobriety crafting my own recovery program which consisted mostly of podcasts, books, yoga and meditation, and a diet overhaul. But I was really craving being able to commiserate with other people about what I was going through, so I began going to twelve step meetings and Refuge Recovery meetings and I am so, so glad I did. I wish I hadn’t waited!
In our work with the legal community, we see a fair number of law students and lawyers who are somewhere in between the precontemplation and contemplation stages of change. The precontemplation stage is when the person is unaware of the need to change a particular behavior, has no interest in changing, minimizes the negative aspects of changing, and highlights the positive reasons for the status quo. The contemplation stage is when the person is aware that something needs to change, they might not know exactly what they need to do or what it will entail, but they have a desire to make a change in the near future.
Anxiety lives in the future. It cannot exist in the present moment. If something bad is happening in the present moment, you might not like it, but you are not anxious about it. Anxiety requires the ambiguity of the future. The never-ending “what if” questions. You cannot ask “what if” questions about what has already happened, or what is currently happening. Anxiety thrives in the unknown.
Many times when I see lawyers (or their family members) for assessment at LCL, I go on to refer them to an outside provider for ongoing therapy/counseling. Unfortunately but necessarily, often the first consideration in choosing a provider is a review of the individual’s managed care provider list. (I always hope the list includes people we know.)
As an LCL employee (since 1998!) it may be presumptuous of me to commend LCL on behalf of our clients, but a recent encounter with another profession’s assistance program has renewed my appreciation of our program for lawyers.
When we see lawyers/law students (or their family members) at LCL who we think would benefit from ongoing therapy (you can call it counseling if you prefer), we make an effort to match them with clinicians with whom we have some experience or have at least acquired relevant information. That’s one of the reasons why coming to LCL for a referral is usually better than simply selecting one from a list. My own approach, if I’ve gotten to know the therapist even a little, is to visualize him or her with the client in front of me, and get a sense of how that might go. The fact is that, while some therapists are more helpful than others, none is a good match for everyone.
Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers (LCL) of Massachusetts, like the lawyer assistance programs in all 50 states, is in many ways based on the model of the Employee Assistance Program (EAP), which grew out of the early growth of the…
Many of us have endured the excruciating situation in which a loved one is caught up in an addiction and we have very limited ability to protect them from themselves. In most cases, this is where options like Intervention or resources like Al-Anon can be helpful tools. When addictive behavior remains active and imminently life-threatening (a possibility of which we are all more aware lately in light of the surging rates of opioid overdose), a possible stopgap action is to seek to compel a period of involuntary alcohol/drug oriented hospitalization in a locked setting.